From Viral Clips to Tiny Spotify Paychecks: The Music Streaming Struggle

Many young musicians today are finding it easy to get thousands of likes and shares for their music on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. However, turning those likes into actual listeners on streaming services such as Spotify is much harder. Megan Wyn, a singer from Anglesey, has over 12,600 followers on her social media accounts, but only about 540 people listen to her music on Spotify each month. She admits that social media is important for helping people discover her music, but she wishes more people would listen to her full songs on Spotify. She finds it challenging to get people to move from watching a 10-second viral video to listening to the entire track.

Another artist, Dylan Carmichael, has 57,000 followers on social media but only one song on Spotify. He says that his fans from TikTok have helped him build a loyal group of people who come to his live shows. Megan says it can be frustrating, but she hopes that people who enjoy a short clip of her song will eventually become fans who listen to the whole thing. She believes that Spotify is important because it allows musicians to reach a huge audience. With 713 million active users worldwide, Spotify is a place where artists can share their music with people they would never meet otherwise.

Even though Spotify can help musicians reach more people, it does not pay much per stream. Megan estimates that she earns about £0. 003 for every time someone listens to her song. For example, Bonnie Tyler's famous song 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' has been streamed over a billion times, and Spotify has paid more than $1. 4 million for her songs. However, how much an artist gets paid depends on many things, like how their music is streamed and the deals they have with record labels.

Megan has also performed at big events, such as opening for Alanis Morissette in Cardiff in front of 35,000 people. She says it is hard to know what will make people like and share her videos on social media. Sometimes, simple videos showing her life or clips from her gigs do better than professional promotional posts. She thinks people like these behind-the-scenes videos because they feel more real and personal. These types of videos have helped her gain more followers and listeners on Spotify.

Megan's music has been added to Spotify playlists like Fresh Finds UK and Proper Belters, which can help her get more exposure. However, she thinks that being on a playlist is not as special as it used to be because there are so many playlists now. Her advice to other young musicians is to focus on being themselves and not just try to make viral videos. She believes that if you care too much about what is popular, you might lose what makes your music special.

The way young people find new music has changed a lot because of social media. Bethan, a 17-year-old from Cardiff, says she found three of her favorite artists through TikTok. If she likes a song, she looks for it on Spotify and saves it if it is not released yet. Izzy, who is 19, also finds music on TikTok, but she admits that she often only knows the popular part of the song, not the whole thing.

Dylan Carmichael started posting song covers on TikTok and Instagram during the Covid-19 lockdown after teaching himself to play guitar. He now has about 57,000 followers, but only one original song on Spotify. He says that people are more likely to listen to covers of songs they already know, but he uses live streaming to introduce his own music. When he performs live, he mixes his original songs with covers, and sometimes people discover and enjoy his own music.

Dylan says that people who come to his gigs often know all the words to his songs, which makes him feel good about his music. He thinks this is because he is a smaller artist, and his fans are truly interested in his work. Even though it is difficult to get people to listen to full songs on Spotify, both Megan and Dylan are finding creative ways to share their music and connect with their fans.